Andretti keen on customer car entry

Mario Andretti says his son Michael "would be straight in" to Formula One if customer cars were allowed.

Current regulations prevent teams selling cars to another team, but the formation of the F1 Strategy Group featuring Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren, Lotus and Williams raised the possibility of the larger teams being able to request customer cars. While the majority of the teams remain opposed to the idea, Andretti told ESPN that it might only be a matter of time before they are introduced in order to cut costs and attract new entries.

"If you imagine opening it up so that any given team could sell to another; to a privateer," Andretti said. "Maybe just start with you can only sell it to one. You would have teams like my son Michael's that would probably enter Formula One. We've talked about it, he said 'If Ferrari would sell me a car, McLaren would sell me a car, Red Bull would sell me a car, we would be straight in'.

"This is a good thing, because I can see that it's probably going to have to happen because the teams could amortize some costs, obviously, and then it's win-win. The team that's coming in doesn't have to have a $200million investment to compete with Red Bull or Ferrari. To me I would see that's what is going to evolve.

"That's also what should keep Formula One strong without really deterring the purity of the technical side of it in my opinion. There are better ways to go before it becomes a spec series."

Chris Medland is assistant editor at ESPNF1 Chris Medland, who in his youth even found the Pacific GPs entertaining, talked his way in to work at the British Grand Prix and was somehow retained for three years. He also worked on the BBC's F1 output prior to becoming assistant editor ahead of the 2011 season